Poor engine/transmission mating - Saab 9000 Bulletin Board - Saabnet.com
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Poor engine/transmission mating
Posted by JEM (more from JEM) on Mon, 16 Jun 2003 20:22:54
In Reply to: Re: Lower Rubber Mounts...Penny Wise and Dollar Foolish, henry, Sun, 15 Jun 2003 23:17:46
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The automatic 2.3 9000s suffer from the fact that automatic transmissions have always been a lower priority for European automakers, and Saab being a small undercapitalized company had to use whatever they could get when they were finalizing the 9000's powertrain in - what? - 1980-81?
Idle shake in the automatic 9000 is normal for the car, and I'm sure it cost Saab a *lot* of sales in the US where automatics are critical.
The ZF 4HP18 transmission and, particularly, the torque converter used is not a good pairing with the 2.3 engine from an NVH (noise/vibration/harshness) standpoint.
Large fours ('large' being typically defined as 'anything over 2 liters') are shaky. The balance shafts fix this, but they lose effectiveness at low RPM.
The torque converter of the 4HP18 loads the engine and drags the idle down to a speed where the shafts aren't effective.
The earlier 2-liter cars idle much more smoothly with the automatic transmission. Of course, they have no torque off-idle, so they're slow as hell to 30mph, but they do idle smoother.
It has nothing to do with the harmonic dampener (which deals with completely different vibration issues, ones you probably wouldn't feel anyway) or the belts or the tensioner.
It's a design characteristic, get used to it.
posted by 198.144.20...
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